East African heads of state announce formation of common HE area

By Sharon Dell – Africa Editor. In Africa News, Christabel Ligami reports on a meeting of East African heads of state in Tanzania which announced the formation of a Common Higher Education Area, another significant step towards full harmonisation of higher education in the region.
   Among a range of other news items from around the continent, Tonderayi Mukeredzi highlights the way in which cash-strapped Zimbabwean students are looking to student political movements for longer-term solutions to the country’s economic crisis; while Wagdy Sawahel reports on India’s deepening higher education cooperation with Egypt.
   In Africa Features, Stephen Coan writes about the threat to academic credibility posed by predatory journals, emphasising research on the extent of the problem in South Africa and possible solutions; while Tunde Fatunde reports on the Anglophone crisis in Cameroon, where protest action in the Anglophone provinces by students, academics, teachers and lawyers, who are objecting to being marginalised by the Francophone-dominated government, is taking its toll; and Munyaradzi Makoni reports on a recent webinar series on technical education hosted by the Association for the Development of Education in Africa Working Group on Higher Education and the Association of African Universities.
   In Africa Analysis, we have two contributions from South Sudan – one from Kuyok Abol Kuyok and the other from John A Akec – both of which point to the enormous strain on the higher education system, with negative implications for the young country’s future development.
   In a Special Report covering an international conference held in South Africa on the contribution of business schools and higher education to inclusive development, Munyaradzi Makoni reports on a speaker’s call for the link globally between higher education access and social advantage to be broken by developing admissions criteria that identify potential. Makoni and Sharon Dell report on a South African vice-chancellor’s call for the need to address the “massive socio-cultural, inter-generational chasm” which exists between students and university administrators; while Makoni also reports on a presentation by students from the School of Oriental and African Studies, UK, which outlines their stance on decolonisation. More...